HMCS Lauzon was a that served with the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War and again as a from 1953-1963. During the war she served primarily as an ocean escort for convoys. She was named for Lauzon, Quebec. Lauzon was ordered in June 1942 as part of the 1943-1944 River-class building program. She was laid down as Glace Bay on 2 July 1943 by the George T. Davie Shipyard at Lauzon, Quebec and launched 10 June 1944. Her name was changed and she was commissioned as Lauzon on 30 August 1944 at Quebec City. Background The River-class frigate was designed by William Reed of Smith's Dock Company of South Bank-on-Tees. Originally called a "twin-screw corvette", its purpose was to improve on the convoy escort classes in service with the Royal Navy at the time, including the Flower-class corvette. The first orders were placed by the Royal Navy in 1940 and the vessels were named for rivers in the United Kingdom, giving name to the class. In Canada they were named after towns and cities though they kept the same designation. The name "frigate" was suggested by Vice-Admiral Percy Nelles of the Royal Canadian Navy and was adopted later that year. Improvements over the corvette design included improved accommodation which was markedly better. The twin engines gave only three more knots of speed but extended the range of the ship to nearly double that of a corvette at at 12 knots. Among other lessons applied to the design was an armament package better designed to combat U-boats including a twin 4-inch mount forward and 12-pounder aft. 15 Canadian frigates were initially fitted with a single 4-inch gun forward but with the exception of , they were all eventually upgraded to the double mount. For underwater targets, the River-class frigate was equipped with a Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar and depth charge rails aft and four side-mounted throwers. River-class frigates were the first Royal Canadian Navy warships to carry the 147B Sword horizontal fan echo sonar transmitter in addition to the irregular ASDIC. This allowed the ship to maintain contact with targets even while firing unless a target was struck. Improved radar and direction-finding equipment improved the RCN's ability to find and track enemy submarines over the previous classes. Canada originally ordered the construction of 33 frigates in October 1941. The design was too big for the shipyards on the Great Lakes